Evil Dead II is a slicker version of its predecessor, served with a very liberal dose of humor in place of the former’s nerve-wracking suspense. Unfortunately, as director Sam Raimi attempts to rejuvenate his tale in order to keep from merely repeating himself, his film loses some of it potency once he introduces his secondary cast midway through the picture as we waver unsteadily between scathing self-reflective mockery and blatant comedy. However, the film nonetheless remains a fun, fast-paced, over-the-top foray into a surreal, Three Stooges-esque nightmare, replete with gallons upon gallons of blood.
A young man, Ashley “Ash” Williams (Bruce Campbell), and his girlfriend, Linda (Denise Bixler), stow away in secluded cabin in the woods which–unbeknownst to them–is the research getaway of one Professor Raymond Knowby (John Peakes). When they discover and play a recording of Knowby reciting incantation passages from the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, the Book of the Dead, evil forces rise from the woods and turn Linda into a demon, whom Ash is forced to behead. Shortly thereafter, Knowby’s daughter, Annie (Sarah Berry)–recently back from an archeological expedition in which she located the negligent pages from the Necronomicon–departs with Ed Getley (Richard Domeier) to deliver the remainder of the manuscript to her father. However, they find that the bridge to the cabin has been destroyed and hire two backwoods locals, Bobbie Joe (Kassie DePaiva) and her boyfriend, Jake (Dan Hicks), to escort them to the refuge. What awaits is a night of unrelenting terror.
As with George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Raimi’s work is not so much a work of gratuitous blood and carnage as a parody of the genre. The director accomplishes this by way of hyper exaggerating the level of gore, never allowing it be been seen as repulsive due to is excess as he directs Campbell into his mature, signature style (Evil Dead II exhibits his masterful ability to reserve act, which many believe Campbell to be the best in the business) as the character of Ash shifts from a cumbersome survivor to hero, meanwhile keeping us on our toes as Raimi unravels his unpredictable tale. For example, when Ash is possessed, Annie (a secondary character as our guide) having managed to elude him within the confines of the cabin, we anxiously watch as she reluctantly throws open a door whose handle is jiggling. Of course, we are anticipating her nemesis. However, not unnecessarily forcing suspension of disbelief, the director calls us on our biased expectations as another character, thought to be dead, appears in frame.
Ultimately, the reason Evil Dead II doesn’t succeed as well as it should in lieu of its attention to detail is due to its preoccupation with overt comedy while attempting to retain a pretense to fright. The narrative titters, unsure whether is wants to be a parody as it mocks one incident before taking the next seriously. Thus, Raimi fails to skirt the chasm between a horrifying black comedy and an overt horror comedy, which I argue in regards to the utilization of either, must be absolute in order for the work to function as a whole when combining such elements with horror (black humor can align itself with terror simultaneously while overt comedy neutralizes the fright if attempted in the same breath). Examples of the two respective categories which readily display the functional differences between the two diverse types of humor include Marion Harron’s American Psycho and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in contrast to Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters and Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead. As Raimi sits on the fence, the viewer becomes confused, unsure whether the excess is to be taken seriously and, consequentially, either our fright is diluted or the next joke automatically deadpans as a result.
Examples of the director’s use of explicit comedy includes when we (via the demon’s POV) are chasing Ash through the cabin and we lose track of our would-be victim before panning left, then right, in hopes of spotting him before resigning ourselves to depart empty-handed. Once Ash is forced to sever his own possessed hand (a malevolent version of the Addams Family’s “Thing,” which pauses as it second-guesses breaking another plate over the protagonist’s head, opting instead to attempt procuring a butcher knife lying across the kitchen floor), he places a trashcan over the disembodied creature in order to contain it, weighed down by a stack of books, the foremost of which is Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. A redux of one of the more rewarding sequences in the original occurs when Knowby’s wife, Henrietta (Lou Hancock, the demonized version of which is played by Ted Raimi), comes back to life and is confined to the cellar as was Ellen Sandweiss’s character, Cheryl. As Ash and Jake stand on top of the cellar door in order to thwart the demon’s efforts to escape, a moment of relief is given once the antagonist subsides, yet Henrietta issues one last push for good measure. Of course, this says nothing of the Three Stooges projection through a horror lens as a grape is replaced by an eyeball as it is launched across the room before finding and wedging its way into the gullet of Bobbie Joe.
By ratio, as the comedy references are increased, the allusions to other horror works are proportionally downgraded. As such, part of the incantations from the Book of the Dead include the term “Nosferatos” (sic). As before, we are witness to another Wes Craven citing in the cellar, only this time in the form of Freddy Kruger’s glove. This is where we find the dried up remains of Henrietta which, I wouldn’t posit as a reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho if it wasn’t for the demon stating, “Someone’s in my fruit cellar!” Next, a deja vu moment recalling Robert Wise’s The Haunting occurs when Bobbie Joe tells Jake that he’s holding her hand too tightly, to which latter replies he isn’t holding her hand. Of course, we are met by the severed claw of Ash. Lastly, and by far the cinematic deference which casts us furthest back into the film archives takes place during Ash’s confrontation with his doppelganger in the mirror, thus evoking Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of the Poet.
Luckily, the creativity of The Evil Dead is also evidenced in its successor. When Ash pauses in order to collect himself, the contents of the cabin begin to laugh as a possessed deer head, two lamps, and a handful of books form a cacophony of mocking jeers (in response to a chair collapsing from beneath our hero). Though not as frequent as in The Evil Dead, there is the signature attention to detail throughout, such as when Ash discovers Linda’s amulet lying on the floor, its chain forming the outline of a skull; the hair on Ash’s left temple turning white by the close of the film; and a vase full of flowers seen in the background instantaneously withering once the penultimate evil has been made manifest. Turning to the climax, we sift through the lost pages of the Necronomicon until we come upon a segment titled “The Hero from the Sky” in which we are granted a brief glimpse at the prophecy to come via a sketch of Ash amid a centuries-old castle which dominates the surrounding landscape. Yet, perhaps most cleverly, is the foreshadowing encased in the curled fingers of the iron girders of the destroyed bridge leading back to civilization as Ash utters, “I’ve got to get a grip on myself,” which he, disembodied, does exactly that once he returns to the cabin.
With Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi attempts to posit humor in place of the ingenuity of his previous foray into the enchanted woods. I cannot help but feel, though creative and well implemented, that the budget somewhat domesticated the director’s drive and the result isn’t as invigorating as its predecessor. Yet, the film is fun in its own right and holds its own quite well until Annie’s entourage appears onscreen, thus distracting us from Raimi’s trump card: Campbell’s mastery of physical comedy. All in all, Evil Dead II is a steadfast work which, unlike many horror sequels, isn’t a parasite to its forerunner.
Conversation piece: Several samples were taken from Raimi’s film and implemented in “Who’s Laughing Now?,” one of the more popular songs by Canadian industrial band, Skinny Puppy on their album VIVISectVI.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with Director David DeFalco (Chaos) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Nathan Baesel (Behind the Mask: ROLV) - January 22, 2015
- An Interview with Bentley Little - January 22, 2015
- So You Want to Be a Movie Critic, Heh? - January 22, 2015
- Fearful Meditations: An Annotated Bibliography of Studies in Horror Cinema - January 22, 2015
- I Can’t Discuss Glen Morgan’s New Film, [Censored] [Censored], Because Liberty Counsel Says It’s Rude: Race, Religious Tolerance, Ethics, and Aesthetics and the 21st Century Holiday Horror Film - January 22, 2015
- Roger Ebert’s Bloody Ax: An Examination of the Film Critic’s Elitist Dismissal of the Horror Film by Michael “Egregious” Gurnow - January 22, 2015
- Defending the King: An Examination of Academia’s Reaction to Stephen King Being Awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters - January 22, 2015
- Zarathustra . . . Cthulhu . Meursault: Existential Futility in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” - January 22, 2015
- The Evil - January 18, 2015
